OpenRailwayMap adds OpenHistoricalMap

[Minh_Nguyen]

The next generation of OpenRailwayMap now sources its historical railway data from OpenHistoricalMap. ORM’s Infrastructure layer sports a new date filter. When you set it to any year in the past, the layer switches from OpenStreetMap data to OHM data. Hover over any rail line to highlight it. Click on it to see basic details such as the name and dates of significance or an option to edit the map. For example, ORM now features the former Hauptbahnhof Karlsruhe, which was decomissioned over a century ago and has since been replaced by an esplanade:

This layer is available at zoom level 5 and beyond. At low zoom levels, it only shows ways tagged usage=main or usage=branch, but you can zoom in to see more. Auckland’s former tram system comes back to life with more detail than would be possible in OSM:

Along with this change, ORM no longer displays demolished railways from OpenStreetMap. Any way tagged railway=abandoned or railway=razed no longer appears on the map, except to the extent that another primary feature tag such as highway=cycleway causes it to appear on an OSM basemap. In their place will be any railway=rail that is available in OHM during the selected time period. This Beeching-axed branch line in Wales comes from a railway=rail in OHM instead of a railway=abandoned in OSM:

For years, demolished railways have caused serious friction within the OSM community. Hopefully this OHM–ORM integration will provide a viable alternative to railfans and history buffs so that we can all focus on what we map best and avoid getting in each others’ way. This is a major accomplishment for all three projects: it affirms the value of this community’s diligent research into rail history, validates ORM’s decision to make a break with the past and embrace modern vector map technology, and enables OSM’s rail mappers to come out of the shadows and map rail history without apology.

There aren’t any current plans to dismantle the Railway style available on our homepage, but the development team would be interested in your feedback about how the two should coexist. Should we try to differentiate the Railway style for a less technical audience, aim for feature parity with ORM’s Infrastructure layer as a sort of entryway into ORM, or combine efforts somehow?

This integration came together rapidly thanks to ORM developer Hidde Wieringa. And it’s just the beginning: anyone can freely reuse OHM’s vector map tiles and stylesheets, design a custom stylesheet based on our tiles, or produce fully custom tiles based on our database dumps or minutely replication files. If you use OHM, please give yourself some credit on our bibliography and spread the word on social media.

Now that more eyes are on OHM, please reach out to any new railfans you see editing the map. Offer them a warm welcome, guide them through the process of finding suitable sources, and share our particular approach to modeling the world. Let them know about any unknowns they can help out with. We’re in it for the long haul!

[ManuelB701]

I definitively appreciate that railway=razed or any variations thereof are stopped to appear in the new ORM given that I remember an incident about adding non-existent tracks to OSM just to make them appear on ORM (if well intended). The decision to not display these will make these incidents certainly much less common.

That being said, I still see merit to display railway=abandoned considering that a lot of the infrastructure is still visible even when the rails have been removed (and partially because ORM only pulls from OSM but not OHM data when set to the present day).
In fact, things become even more complex when you consider that you still can place railway=abandoned on OHM to showcase which of these remnants still exist today and which of these have been dismantled because it got in the way of new infrastructure at some point.

@Minh_Nguyen

There aren’t any current plans to dismantle the Railway style available on our homepage, but the development team would be interested in your feedback about how the two should coexist. Should we try to differentiate the Railway style for a less technical audience, aim for feature parity with ORM’s Infrastructure layer as a sort of entryway into ORM, or combine efforts somehow?

IMO the railway style allows for a greater focus on railways compared to the standard view such as making the individual railways more prominent or allowing a greater display on the detail but not to the same extend as ORM and also having a more subdued style (read: not displaying every single colour of a rainbow for every type of tracks and then some).
The other reason is that ORM only handles the display of the railways but pulls in the background from somewhere else whereas OHM still displays other data with lesser prominence.

[Minh_Nguyen]

@ManuelB701

That being said, I still see merit to display railway=abandoned considering that a lot of the infrastructure is still visible even when the rails have been removed (and partially because ORM only pulls from OSM but not OHM data when set to the present day).
In fact, things become even more complex when you consider that you still can place railway=abandoned on OHM to showcase which of these remnants still exist today and which of these have been dismantled because it got in the way of new infrastructure at some point.

Quite true. If the distinction between railway=abandoned and railway=razed is a settled matter in OSM, this would be a good request for ORM – if I remember correctly, only a few lines were removed for that tag. And a good request for OHM’s stylesheets as well.

[Skunkman56]

Awesome!

Just goes to show much much progress has been made with OHM and mapping railroads within the application!

[Tjoeker]

I still like that OHM shows the rails in their context/surroundings as they were at the time. While ORM shows the rails on top of a current day map (which has its own use)

[flha127]

@Tjoeker

shows the rails in their context/surroundings as they were at the time.

A 99% empty map (from a contributor with 34,000 edits), let’s be realistic…

That alone is 8-12 hours of work, and I haven’t finished Macy’s Yard yet; I can’t even imagine having to redo the entire surrounding area.

[Tjoeker]

OSM started out empty too. And look where we are now.

We just need to make sure mapping becomes a bit easier, provide some default sources etc. To not scare new mappers away. But it will come.

[Bauer33333]

The map shows tracks tagged with service now as well. The station in the opening post looks now like this, showing more historic detail then you could add to OSM without creating a indistinguishable mess:

link